[Peace] FW: Education Dept. Eases Student-Privacy Rules for FBI's Terrorism Investigation (fwd)

[sarah elzbieta kanouse]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:13:50 -0500
From: Theresa Ferguson <tafergus at students.uiuc.edu>
To: geo-stewards at prairienet.org
Subject: FW: Education Dept. Eases Student-Privacy Rules for FBI's
    Terrorism Investigation

  Friday, September 21, 2001



  Education Dept. Eases Student-Privacy Rules for FBI's
  Terrorism Investigation

  By ANDREA L. FOSTER



  The Department of Education is advising college administrators
  that if the Federal Bureau of Investigation asks them for the
  records of specific students, they can provide the data
  without running afoul of the Family Educational Rights and
  Privacy Act.

  FERPA, which is commonly known as the Buckley Amendment, bars
  colleges from releasing students' personal information without
  their written permission. But the law allows for several
  exceptions, including  a "health or safety emergency." And the
  Family Policy and Compliance Office of the Department of
  Education is using the exception to tell colleges that they
  can turn over student data to the FBI, said Lindsey Kozberg,
  an Education Department spokeswoman.

  She said several colleges had contacted the department for
  guidance after being approached by law-enforcement authorities
  who were investigating last week's terrorist attacks.

  "Generally, the guidance we have given is that the exception
  applies," Ms. Kozberg said.  She said college administrators
  with questions about whether it is appropriate to turn over
  the data should call the family compliance office at (202)
  260-3887. "The best advice we can provide is that this is
  decided on a case-by-case basis," she added.

  She declined to elaborate on what circumstances the department
  considers when advising college officials on the dissemination
  of student records.

  Normally, law-enforcement officials would need to have a
  subpoena to gain access to student data. But some of the
  colleges that have been contacted recently say no subpoenas
  have been used.

  Law-enforcement officials have approached administrators from
  at least two colleges asking for the names of students who
  they believe can assist them in investigating the terrorist
  attacks. Auburn University at Montgomery, in Alabama, was
  contacted, as was an unnamed community college with a large
  population of Muslim students.

  A lawyer for the community college spoke on the condition that
  neither he nor the college be identified. "I don't want to
  make students fearful," he said.

  The lawyer said the FBI had inquired about the local street
  address of a student from the Middle East with an
  Arabic-sounding name who was admitted to the United States on
  an F-1 visa, which is how most foreign students enter the
  country. The lawyer said the college provided the data to the
  FBI without seeking the student's consent or alerting the
  student afterward.

  George Hill, the registrar of Auburn University at Montgomery,
  said the chief of the campus police contacted him on the
  morning of September 11, shortly after the attacks, and said
  that the Alabama Bureau of Investigation wanted the names of
  all foreign students who were enrolled at the university and
  their countries of their origin.

  Mr. Hill handed over a list of about 89 students to the
  bureau. The agency was working in cooperation with the FBI, he
  added.

  It is unclear how many colleges the FBI has asked to provide
  student data. But in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist
  attacks, a handful of colleges sought guidance from the
  American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
  Officers on whether administrators should comply with FBI
  requests for student records, said Barmak Nassirian, the
  associate executive director of the registrars' group.

  After those initial calls, a "torrent" of colleges have been
  contacting the group for help on the issue, not necessarily
  because they have been approached by FBI agents but because
  they anticipate such inquiries or are simply curious, Mr.
  Nassirian added.

  In light of the inquiries, Jerry Sullivan, the executive
  director of the group, sent an e-mail message to the group's
  members Wednesday telling them that the family compliance
  office says releasing the data to law-enforcement authorities
  without students' permission is "allowable under FERPA
  emergency disclosure provisions."

  The message states that the office does not plan to issue a
  rule on the matter.

  "Despite the clear emergency we now face, the
  emergency-disclosure provision of FERPA mandates releases are
  to be considered on a case-by-case basis, and therefore, a
  blanket policy statement is not appropriate," the message
  reads.

  It concludes by saying that Congress is considering approving
  an anti-terrorism bill that would include a provision
  loosening FERPA provisions  to allow "nonconsensual release of
  non-directory information to law-enforcement authorities."


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Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

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